unlocking data and information on plants, algae and fungi

Council of Heads of Australian HerbariaNovember 2000

Vision

Business objective

Completion of Australia's Virtual Herbarium as a cooperative electronic flora information system that improves the sharing of data and information in Australian herbaria, effectively an electronic Australian Flora, a one-stop source of current information on the plants, algae and fungi of the megadiverse Australian continent.

Business impetus

Since the early 1980s the Australian herbaria have been seeking more efficient ways of providing access to their collective data and information traditionally provided as individual herbaria.

This strategic statement maps a course over the three years from 2000 to 2002 for projecting data and information on the Australian plants, algae and fungi electronically in an integrate way.

Australia's Virtual Herbarium will provide a distributed electronic network of regional, state and national floras, and manuals on individual plant groups.

Goals

Develop by agreed steps a web site comprising a distributed, fully integrated Australian flora information system known as Australia's Virtual Herbarium. Status. Ongoing. Completion date: determined by annual review.

Develop a prototype species distribution mapper dynamically generated from a single query to a number of distributed data sets. Status: Working prototype completed; enhancements being developed in various herbaria. Completion date. Enhancements ongoing. Production version will require major resourcing.

Complete the protocols for maintaining a shared national census and nomenclator of current and historic scientific names. Status: Actioned. Completion date. 2002

Complete data capture, incorporating data quality protocols, of the 6 million specimens in the Australian herbaria, including geocoded point location data. (Data associated with about 40% have been captured to date). Status: Ongoing. Completion date. Dependent on external resourcing.

Incorporate access to other distributed data, e.g. images, descriptions, and identification tools, and other data linked to scientific names and specimens. Status: Under development/actioned. Completion date. Proof of concept by 2002

Establish a framework for administering Australia's Virtual Herbarium under Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria as the Steering Committee and Herbarium Information Systems Committee as the Project Team. Status: Completed

This Strategic Statement is the HISCOM2000 update
of HISCOM Strategic Plan v.2.e-f (1998)

Status and Completion Dates are based on existing levels of resourcing

Building an electronic Australian Flora

Herbaria have long provided information about plants, algae and fungi. The oldest Australian herbaria, in Melbourne and Sydney, were founded in the mid 1800s.

Australian plant systematists have produced thousands of authoritative publications on these organisms, including scientific papers and floras and other semi-popular handbooks founded on the cooperation and extensive resources of the Australian herbaria.

The Flora of Australia, published by ABRS in cooperation with the Australian herbaria and botanists, is a key project in the long tradition of Australia-wide research in Australian plant classification. This internationally recognised publication is underpinned by collection data and information outputs in the Australian herbaria.

The ease of computer storage of data and information, and the World Wide Web, providing sophisticated remote access to these data, are ideally suited to projecting this important knowledge base to a wider client base. Organisations and individuals now have unsurpassed opportunity for accessing these data.

Australia's Virtual Herbarium provides the opportunity to deliver descriptions of the flora dynamically linked to data and information from across the continent, a distributed on-line cooperative Australian Flora. As new observations are confirmed and recorded in databases, they can be released without the long delays inherent in traditional hardcopy publication.

Some future challenges for accurate portrayal of Australia's plant, algal and fungal biodiversity

Computerisation of all specimen record data.

Development of Australia's Virtual Herbarium prototype into a fully functional framework for accessing existing and new data and information on our flora while preserving custodianship.

Achieving improved support for revisions of the classification of problem groups of plants, algae and fungi. It is through revisional research that we have achieved our existing knowledge and it is the
only means to extend it.

Educating clients as to:

the need to base ecological and other biological observations on specimens (called vouchers) maintained by herbaria to ensure currency of plant names as knowledge improves.

the value of herbarium collections in providing the most comprehensive picture available of the distribution of Australia's plant biodiversity.

Since the mid 1970s Australian herbaria have been involved cooperatively in digitisation of their
data on plants, algae and fungi through initiatives at the State, Commonwealth and individual level. Underpinning this has been the development of a specimen data interchange standard (HISPID3).

The Herbarium Information Systems Committee (HISCOM) was established in 1995 by the Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH) to accelerate the cooperative development of storage, maintenance and dissemination of plant, algal and fungal data and information in Australian government herbaria.

Australia's Virtual Herbarium concept and prototype arose from this active working group. It is accessed via an interactive Web interface replicated at each herbarium site, linked to the information systems of each Australian herbarium. Most data will be stored at custodial sites, though there will be shared resources (mainly taxonomic tools), such as the scientific names database (Australian Plant Names Index) with global links, and a Type Photos Database.

The specimen distribution mapper, at present integrating locality data of all Acacia species in (at present) 6 of the 8 main Australian herbaria, demonstrates the great potential of the system and
the need for a major effort to

complete the capture of the data associated with the remaining 60% of the 6 million
Australian herbarium specimens. This includes the key spatial data for mapping
the distribution of our plant, algal and fungal diversity, and

Potentially beneficiaries are from five groups: land managers and environmental decision-makers; community groups; plant systematists (herbaria and universities); scientists from other disciplines; and the public and education sectors.

The changing knowledge base on Australian plants

Australian botany is still in the discovery phase. Scientific names of plants, algae and fungi
continue to change with new discoveries and as knowledge of our species continues to increase, even in the better known groups and regions. Australia's Virtual Herbarium has the potential to improve the identification of the gaps in knowledge of our vast continent.

Data already assembled in Australian herbaria in ongoing core programmes

Each State Herbarium maintains an authoritative Census of plants for its region in electronic form.

Herbarium collections date from the earliest days of European exploration and colonisation and collectively now number over 6 million. Just over 40% of these specimens have been databased, providing a comprehensive resource for:

accurate depiction of geographic distribution and occurrence of plants.

Above: Species distribution mappers linked live to maintained and growing databases
Example: Australia's Virtual Herbarium mapper developed collaboratively by State Herbarium of SA with HISCOM (sample page)

Australia's Virtual Herbarium: a longterm cooperative project

The requirements of Australia's Virtual Herbarium are long-term both as to sourcing of data and information and as to commitment to its aims. It is not a once in a lifetime production. The Australian Government Herbaria are particularly suited to tackling this project, having existed in each State for many decades, the earliest from the mid 1800s. The most recent is the Tasmanian Herbarium, established in the 1960s, but with roots back to the prior century. The herbaria have had a long history of cooperation to meet the common goal of advancing knowledge of the plants, algae and fungi of this megadiverse continent.